


Conversations With Dead People

by Pandean



Series: Liminal Beings [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Basically it's just Ned and Robert speaking, Dead People, Do the Old God have a resting place?, Especially Robert, Everyone is Dead, Gen, He's surprisingly introspective, Heaven, Is it one of the seven heavens?, Is it the resting place of the Old Gods?, OOC probably for the cast, Only mentions of Catelyn, Only mentions of Cersei, Only mentions of Lyanna, Only mentions of Rhaegar, Out of Character, but here they are, idk - Freeform, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 11:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16515740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandean/pseuds/Pandean
Summary: His sword fell, his head came off, and Eddard "Ned" Stark entered the afterlife. Now dead, he and Robert have a lot to talk about.





	Conversations With Dead People

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little idea that was floating through my head. Characters are probably super OOC or whatever it's called. Especially Robert. He's a bit more wise, somehow. 
> 
> Either way, hope you enjoy!

He wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel once the sword-- _his sword, Ice--_ bit down into his neck, cleaving his head clean off his shoulders. He supposed there was a certain stillness for a second, right after, where he was still aware. His last thought was toward his daughters, a wordless apology that they'd never know. A thought so bitter he could taste it in his, what, mouth? 

 

Eddard Stark wasn't aware dead men could taste.

 

But taste he did and the bitterness flew through him like the wine they made up in the north from those small powder blue berries that clung to the trees come spring. Arya--Arya had Yoren. Someone to protect her--though he wasn't so much of a fool as to believe that she was completely safe. She never would be and no amount of lessons with her dancing master could change that.

 

And Sansa.... _Gods_ , Ned did not want to think of what was in store for her. There was a pang inside him, sharp as hunger in the dead of winter, and he wondered if being dead was what made him see his shortcomings. Wondered if he could've prepared her more, paid more attention to her despite his inability to understand her the way he did his youngest daughter. 

It was funny. Eddard Stark wasn't aware dead men could wonder.

"Dead men can do a lot of things, Ned." A familiar voice said and suddenly the darkness, the stillness, flooded with color and movement and sound. It shimmered like a mirage, the surroundings changing and morphing so that one second he felt as if he was in his own Godswood in Winterfell and the next some wild country that he might've rode in his younger days. There were whispers on the breeze--of the old Gods? The voice he heard was no follower of the old Gods, or even any God as far as he knew.

But he still stood there before his eyes, younger, healthier, looking more like he had when he originally took the crown and now after his years on the Iron Throne. Black hair cut a little past his ears, blue eyes blazing in their sockets, muscles greater than any maiden's fantasy. Robert Baratheon, young once again.

"Robert?" Ned asked, bemusement in his voice. For a split second he wondered if he looked younger too and then shook the thought aside. There was no reason to care about such things.

"Ned," Robert said in greeting.

"Where are we?" 

"Buggar if I know," Robert said, sounding much like the old dead king he used to be, "Not the seven heavens, not the hells either. And not wherever your blasted tree gods take you once you die."

Ned remained wordless, processing.

"The landscape always changes, the people come and go. Your sister is here somewhere with that damned snake."

Lyanna was here? With  _Rhaegar?_  

"Where?" He looked around wildly. The last time he'd seen his younger sister she'd been on the birthing bed, bleeding out and smelling of winter roses, pleading with him to protect her son. He'd failed that too, hadn't he? It wasn't enough not to be able to protect his own daughters, but his sister's only son. 

" _Gods,_ Ned!" Robert boomed, taking him out of his thoughts once again. "You could've told me! We were friends! Did you truly think I'd kill any child from Lyanna's womb?"

Bloody, broken bodies wrapped in crimson cloaks flashed in Ned Stark's mind and he spoke. "You wanted every Targaryen dead, Robert, and in the heat of victory you would've taken Lyanna's boy same as all the others. Don't lie to yourself."

Robert frowned and Ned prepared himself for the storm of an angry Baratheon but instead Robert spat on the ground. "Seven bloody hells, why do you always have to be right, Ned?"  
  


Ned shook his head, mind adrift again. He realized if he focused he could see things in the ever changing background: his eldest being crowned King in the North, his wife guiding by his side. Bran waking and Rickon's wildness and Arya's trek out the gates of Kings Landing with the rest of the Night's Watch recruits. Jon riding back south to Winterfell before being stopped by his new brothers. Sansa staring at his severed head without seeing, blood on her split lip and bruises already blooming from where her skin showed from her dress.

There was a saying in the south that a northman's heart was made of thick ice and unable to melt even in the height of summer. But his heart instead was porcelain, cracking as it dropped to the ground and stayed there. He could see it, laying in the snow of this dreamscape, bloodying it, before the scenery became hazy once more.

He failed his family. Failed them. 

"Don't think like that," Robert said, his gaze also somewhere far away. Was he seeing what Ned saw, but with his own brothers, his own family?

"Do you read minds now?" Ned asked, heavy with northern dry wit.

"No, you just get this damned look on your face every time you feel guilty. Back in the Vale it would almost make my cock wilt whenever I dragged you along with me into a tavern." He paused and his eyes grew clearer before speaking again. "If anyone failed their family, it was me. Fuck, if you can even call that golden cunt and her litter of incest cubs a family in the first place." He sighed and shook his head. "No matter. I knew what Joffrey was becoming. I could've done something. Fuck, I could've extended a hand to my brothers, but I didn't. At least you did what you could."

"It wasn't enough." Ned watched below once more as he saw Arya beating up a fat boy with her little sword, as he saw Sansa move to push Joffrey off the battlements before being stopped by the Hound.

No, it wasn't enough. He just had to hope they made it through anyway. 

There was nothing else to do but watch as their fates unfolded.  


End file.
